Master of Hyperrealism
CAROLE A. FEUERMAN
My Stories
Church of the Pietà – Chapel - Riva degli Schiavoni 20.04 – 27.11 2022
Carole A. Feuerman returns to Venice after three years for the occasion of the 2022 La Biennale Arte. Her exhibition with, My Stories, focuses on the human body through the double treatment of the immediate to eternity, to reveal the prolific expressive path of the artist who has marked the history of hyperrealist sculpture in the last fifty years.
Curated by Paolo De Grandis and Carlotta Scarpa, the exhibition is organised by Bel-Air Fine Art Contemporary Art Galleries, which since 2017 has been promoting the work of Carole A. Feuerman internationally through exhibitions, talks, meetings and touring projects. Organised in collaboration with PDG Arte Communications, My Stories will be held in the Chapel of the Church of the Pietà in parallel with the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, from 20 April to 27 November 2022.
While part of Feuerman’s artistic sculptures is inspired by swimmers and bathers, over the years the artist has developed parallel thematic strands portraying athletes, dancers and even tributes to the great classics of art history; iconic works using bronze and 24k gold leaf, already exhibited with great success in Rome in 2021 at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna and the Terrazza del Pincio, and at Palazzo Reale in Milan.
My Stories is meant to be a summation of her important narrative, ranging from childhood to more recent encounters in which she captures the essence of a person feelings in a single pose. The exhibition’s fascinating journey is also revealed through the dialogue with the exhibition space of the Chapel of the Church of the Pietà, also known as “Vivaldi’s Church,” because this is where the great Maestro worked and composed. If Carole A. Feuerman’s works find their ideal context in museum exhibitions or in public open-air spaces, My Stories seeks to find a strongly characterized location to create a new use that draws on the play of light and shade linked to sacred architecture.
Continuous research, be it autobiographical or the story of a single encounter, is the secret obsession that Carole A. Feuerman pours into her work, and the hyperrealist sculpture becomes its emblem. The fragments of ourselves that we think we find in the perfect portrait of others confirm the need to reflect on the illusory power of this reflection. While perfectly and meticulously adhering to the reality of the person portrayed, the artist sub- tends a part of herself in each work to bring out universal feelings closely linked to opti- mism, strength, and integrity. It is precisely this exoteric value of Feuerman’s works that allows that precise moment to last for eternity.
Through a journey back in time, it will be possible to learn the story behind each work that has marked an encounter for the artist, from Christina, the Queen of Sweden, depicted in a moment of introspection that implies her great vitality, to Yaima and the Ball, an Olympic volleyball player from Cuba who suffered an injury and is portrayed in all her vigour and physical power, leaning on a pedestal to regain her balance. In Serenity and Perseverance, the inspiration is linked to a specific feeling that is reflected in the movement of the sculp- tures as well as in Eyes Open, which was created during the pandemic, and it is precisely in the divergence between the title and the work (depicting a woman with her eyes closed) that the artist invites us to reflect on these tumultuous times.
Carole A. Feuerman’s technical expertise is unparalleled and is achieved through a pains- taking process: from the choice of the model to the first silicone mould, from the first plaster cast to the most meticulous intervention through the application of all the details such as eyelashes, freckles and drops of water. A continuous act that is regenerated each time the work is exhibited.
The remarkable collection of works on display, including some examples of wall sculptures (General Daughter’s, Moran II), present in an exemplary manner, five decades of hyperreal- ist sculpture told through the representation of the human body. Carole A. Feuerman aims to probe the most intimate aspects of making art. She offers her autobiographical approach, dictated solely by the need to recognise herself as an artist that gives voice to memory, captured by her eye devoid of interpretative ambitions, seeking a path that is always practi- cable and usable for the spectator. My Stories is, indiscriminately, universal language, private and collective evocation.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Carole A. Feuerman is an American sculptor and author working in Hyperrealism. She is one of the three artists credited with starting the movement in the late 1970s. She is best known for her iconic figurative works of swimmers and dancers. She is the only artist to make life-like outdoor sculptures and the only woman to sculpt in this style. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the
Feuerman’s public works have been displayed across the globe, including but not limited to: Central Park and SoHo, New York, l’ Avenue George V in Paris, Harbor City in Hong Kong, Milan, Rome, Giardino della Marinaressa in Italy, New Bond Street, Canary Wharf in London, and Knokke Heist in Belgium, the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution; the State Hermitage Museum; the Venice Biennale; Galleria d’Arte Moderna; Palazzo Strozzi Palace and Palazzo Reale in Milan.
She has taught, lectured, and given workshops at the Metropolitan Museum of Art the Solomon Guggenheim Museum, Columbia University and Grounds for Sculpture. In 2011, she founded the Carole A. Feuerman Sculpture Foundation. Her artworks are owned by thirty-one museums, as well as in the collections of the City of Peekskill, New York, the City of Sunnyvale California, Former President Clinton and Former Senator Hillary Clinton, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Dr. Henry Kissinger, the Mikhail Gorbachev Art Foundation, Mr. Steven A. Cohen, Alexandre Grendene Bartelle, and the Malcolm Forbes Magazine Collection. Feuerman’s selected awards include the Best in Show at the Third Beijing International Art Biennale, Beijing, China, the 2001 "Lorenzo il Magnifico" Prize for the International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Florence, Italy, the Prize of Honor in 2002 for the Ausstellungszentrum Heft in Huttenberg, Austria, and the Medici Prize awarded by the City of Florence.
She lives in New York City, and is the wife of Ronald Cohen, the mother of Lauren Leahy, Sari Gibson, and Craig Feuerman and the grandmother of Hannah and Sam Leahy, and Isla and Kai Feuerman.
